Invisible to Gaydar/Playing With
Basic Trope: A character is gay but shows no obvious gay mannerisms.
- Straight: Bob is gay but doesn't fit into any gay stereotypes.
- Exaggerated: Bob is gay but takes all of the heterosexual male stereotypes to an extreme, being more stereotypically male than even his straight friends.
- Bob even enganges in flirting (if not making out) with women, but is always claiming that he is gay.
- Bob is a rather chauvinist pig who is also gay with no camps mannerism, he even claims that women and camp gays are inferior.
- Manly Gay
- Justified: It is simply Bob's natural personality.
- Inverted: Camp Straight
- Subverted: Bob is gay and seems to show no obvious gay mannerisms, but when he is around more intimate friends or by himself, he becomes a Camp Gay.
- Bob is really straight after all.
- Doubly Subverted: Bob is gay and seems to show no obvious gay mannerisms, but when he is around more intimate friends, he becomes a Camp Gay... but it turns out he does that just so he can fit in with them, and isn't Camp Gay naturally.
- Untwisted: When the audience is introduced to Bob, they expect him to be a Camp Gay, but he is not.
- Parodied: Bob has no gay mannerisms and never acts gay, to the point where no one has any reason to believe that he is gay other than the fact that he says he is, leading to Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?, as well as hilarious misunderstanding.
- Deconstructed: Bob's insecurities about being gay cause him to play up his "manliness" and actively avoid gay-themed places and events even if he would enjoy himself, whether anyone is actually questioning his masculinity or not. Furthermore, he will only date men as "straight-acting" as he is.
- Reconstructed: Bob is able to use his lack of gay mannerisms to avoid other peoples' gaydar, helping his career or allowing him to go unnoticed in a homophobic area. More generally, Bob's lack of gay mannerisms allows the audience to see him as a well-rounded character, rather than a token gay.
- Bob flat-out rejects what society keeps telling him. He can be gay and still be a normal guy if he damn well pleases.
- Zig Zagged: Bob shows no gay mannerisms, but acts Camp Gay around his gay friends, but when he comes home, he loses the gay mannerisms, but then he wishes he weren't in the habit of hiding them, but then it turns out he isn't gay at all...
- Averted: Bob isn't gay, even though he is the type of character than normally would be. Alternatively, Bob is Camp Gay from the beginning.
- Bob isn't exactly Camp Gay, but he likes musicals and manicures.
- Enforced: Bob doesn't show any gay mannerisms because the producers of the show are afraid of angering gay rights activists or turning off their viewers by showing a Camp Gay man.
- Lampshaded: "You know, not all of us gays are flaming; some of us act just like you."
- Invoked: Bob uses the fact that he has no gay mannerisms to pretend to be straight and reap some sort of benefit from doing so.
- Defied: Bob tries to show gay mannerisms, even though they don't come naturally to him, to avoid being a Invisible to Gaydar.
- Discussed: "I know Bob isn't flaming, but that doesn't mean he isn't gay."
- Conversed: "Just because Bob is Alice's gay best friend on this show doesn't mean he needs to act like a poof; not all gays are flaming, you know."
- Played For Laughs: Bob's lack of gay mannerisms is used as the butt of a joke.
- Played For Drama: Bob doesn't show any gay mannerisms because he is afraid of people finding out his sexuality, for fear of homophobia.
Back to Invisible to Gaydar... wait, he's gay?!